Stella Nobis Non Concessit
by apatia-a
Summary: After Sephiroth's life arrangements with Aerith, Cloud had figured that his chances were a little along the lines of zero to none; and although he spent more than enough years away, it still didn't prevent him from maintaining his repressed love-life and unrequited feelings. To tell the truth, he was more than certain that Sephiroth had constantly refused to notice him at all.


Contrary to the drawn-up conclusion that he was enamored by the heavy, quaint drops of the rain, he loathed it. It was not the same as the petty loathing which came along with a trumped up accusation or a reason to place the blame upon someone or _something_ else. No, it was much more detailed, much more defined than the blurred contour which came with the softening of an image. It was as a gentle breeze carelessly nudging a few leafs of paper to the ground below, or as a light dust becoming blown frustratingly so into one's eyes. It was nothing more than a constant reminder—a pain at most which would not cease to erase itself from acknowledgement—of all that he had built and all that had built him up, and a stab of that which tore him down.

To blame the rain for his misery would have been folly, but to blame it on an innocent child ignorant of all manners of recourse caused by her own birth was much more foolish and sinful. With as much insistence on behalf of his pained heart by the aggressive prodding of his mind with the burning torture of a branding iron, he simply could not and would not do it.

Perhaps it was in the way that her chartreuse eyes had languishingly opened almost hoping for the promise of a better sight only to fall shut once more as though she had been denied the careful and tender welcome that she had possibly hoped for while being cradled in the womb; or perhaps it was in the way that her hands, having no proper control of themselves, twitched in an attempt to grasp at what was there but not available for her to hold onto any long. Perhaps it had all been in the recesses of his wishful mind, but a glimpse of those eyes much different from his own yet all the same had been all that kept him rooted to the ground any further. With the gentleness of a light breeze and the heavy yet quaint drops of the rain, this child was his.

And still, he hated the rain.

As the child would grow to know, there was hardly anything further to reach out for beyond the now limp arms which held her except himself. And perhaps someday too, she would grow to hate the rain. And possibly with the slightest of chances, she would learn to understand why he hated the rain more than he hated flowers, too.

Easing his head against the cool glass of the window, he would ignore the faint chill against his cheek albeit a portion of his hair and allow himself the ambivalence cast between pleasure and sorrow of listening to the way each droplet tapped against the glass like the cheerful inklings of _her_ laughter within his ear; like the easy tapping of her deft fingers against his shoulders; just like the pattering of water droplets along the variegated petals of the flowers she once tended to. The rain was not the rain: Aerith was in the rain—she is the rain to ever-remind him of what he had once cherished so deeply and could now hardly find the strength to cease clinging to.

Like another day's rain, she would be nothing more than a flickering memory grafted in the light curvature of their daughter's lips with each stubborn yet appeasing smile, but he would hold onto that memory until his final breath.

"_Why do we cling together?"_ she had once questioned, and had he the will and power to move his mouth into answering her question then, he would have done so more willingly than he was willing to do so now. The answer to those words no longer mattered. Regardless of what he would say, or what he would dare to shout into the ambient static of the pouring rain, she would never hear them within the water in which she was lain. The answer to her question only fall upon deaf ears besides his own.

She was dead and she would remain as lifeless as she had been since the birth of their child; and even if he would die in desperation, he would cling onto the very memory which she had left behind.

* * *

**Note**: Inspired by this image. Instead of it being Aerith, I prefer to think of it as Sephiroth and Aerith's child. This series is named after a line from the track _Yakusoku no Chi ~The Promised Land~_. Ratings and warnings will change as this progresses. Sorry for killing Aerith off-script, I'm planning on writing a separate story for Sephiroth/Aerith pre-SNNC though so that all of this comes together. There's a lot more to this story than what the summary says; I simply can't put it into words without spoiling it all. Tell me your thoughts please.


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